The present invention relates to robotic devices and, more particularly, to robotic devices wherein electromechanical mechanisms are used to simulate a wide variety of muscle movements in the face or other portions of a model.
Robotic devices have found application in a number of different fields. The nuclear power industry, for example, uses robotic devices to enable the safe manipulation of radioactive materials. Other industries use similar devices to allow the operator to perform dangerous or difficult tasks. The mechanisms for operating such robotic devices typically include large and complex electromechanical machinery operated by sophisticated control circuits.
In the entertainment industry various techniques and types of devices have been used to animate the movements of a model. Stop action techniques typically require manual manipulation of the model in conjunction with a sequence of photographs to simulate continuous movement of the model. Such techniques are very time consuming and often produce unsatisfactory results. Though efforts have been made to provide the model with mechanisms allowing it to move in response to control signals, such mechanisms have typically suffered from a difficulty in arranging an adequate number of control devices within the framework of the model. Moreover, the reliability of such devices has been difficult to maintain.
Contemporary robotic devices used to mimic human or other characteristic movements commonly utilize pneumatic control devices that move surface portions, e.g. the facial features of the model, as a result of controlled injection or removal of air into a chamber. Thus, the movement of the mouth, head, eyes and other muscles may be simulated by controlling the air pressure to or from a given region. Though such devices may be constructed to provide generally reliable operation, they suffer from several substantial drawbacks which limit the degree of simulation that may be obtained. One principle drawback with such pneumatic devices is that the pneumatic servo mechanisms and actuators typically consume substantial amounts of space within the model and therefore the number of such mechanisms is limited, so long as the model is designed to contain all such devices. Similarly, the chamber that receives the controlled air pressure also requires space within the principle features of the model. Thus, of the fifty facial muscles that a human may manipulate to create different facial expressions, pneumatic models are typically operative to simulate movement of between five and ten of those muscles.
Though various industries have utilized electromechanical robotic devices to perform specific tasks, it is heretofore been unknown to incorporate such electromechanical mechanisms into a human or animal caricature in a way to permit the manipulation of a large number of facial features by a self-contained control mechanism as described below.